Living with Uncertainty
Hello Dear Ones!
It’s been quite a week. A week of profound emotions, and a week of incredible insight and learning. Please note, this is not a cheerful writing today, although it will come out somewhere useful. Read or don’t read. Totally up to you.
Our first wildfire popped up, burning in a mountain in the heart of our community. Wildfires of this magnitude are new in our land. We are unprepared. The terror I have felt, and have noted in our community, has been something to behold.
First, I must tell you: We are safe. As far as I know, no one has been injured, no homes lost. The much-needed rains finally came to our very dry land early this morning, clearing the air, helping to contain the fire. The relief I have felt today, and have seen in the faces of our community, is yet another thing to behold. We are all breathing more easily (literally and figuratively).
It’s a little bit hard to write about all of this, and yet it is the only thing I can write about this week. My feelings and inner process are so multi-layered, it is a bit hard to tease apart. I am going to do my best here to bring out the pieces that connect us all.
So much has run through me in this experience. As a highly sensitive person with empathic abilities, my gosh I feel everything so deeply.
Grief has been the most prevalent feeling. I have been grieving the fact that we have co-created this disaster. I have watched wildfires and atmospheric rivers happen in other parts of our country, tsunamis and tornados and floods all over the world… and it has all just felt too far removed from my lived experience to really hook me. But now, this lived experience is so real… I cannot help but grieve what we have collectively, perhaps accidentally done to our environment… and what we are all now experiencing in our everyday lives. I am taking real responsibility in my heart, but the true lifestyle changes that I need to make are of course not as easy.
Grief pours through me as I recognize (and find myself feeling into) the lived experience of the animals who have had to flee. The animals who are without homes, who do not have shelter from the dense smoke that has permeated this land. The animals who are tired, who are running, who are confused… and whose lung tissues are adversely affected.
Grief pours through me as I think about the ravaged land. As I think about the persistant and polluting flame retardants that likely have been dropped onto our mountain, and then spread in the winds into our soils. My previously clean garden soil… The soil in which our wildlife’s food grows…
And our babies. Our children. Our lungs…
What I have come to realize in all of this is that for my entire life, I have felt into life, into land, into animals, into other people far more deeply than I can put into words. For my entire life I have felt into these things and beings, but I haven’t exactly realized I was doing it. This wildfire has made it abundantly clear that I perceive so much more than I realized (from the world around me).
(It’s so easy for me to feel into and grieve the very big picture things, to go really wide and really deep in my grief… while also holding the grief of tiny things in my hands. This often feels like a blessing, a gift, and can also be a point of intolerable pain at times).
What I have come to is that life is so precious. We have easily and naturally taken so much for granted (clean air, clean soil, thriving forests, healthy bodies, the steadiness and predictability of life, etc…). And we are now living with uncertainty. Our ancestors knew uncertainty well. It was the fabric of life, the strong foundation of a life interwoven with love and laughter and joy. As a wise woman said to me yesterday, it is the interweaving of heaven and hell in everyday life. We in modern times have been so sheltered from big uncertainty. I know that I have in my life. What a privilege and also a disservice. I remember years ago in my travels through India and South Africa, the getting on with life despite the everyday-ness of profound uncertainty… It was palpable. I felt more human while being there. The interwoven uncertainty and joy of life made everything feel more true, more honest, more real. That appealed to me so much, and yet at the time I couldn’t put any of this into words.
So. I am (we are) in a way, returned to the lived experience of our ancestors, the lived experience of the people I witnessed in faraway lands. We are now living in the interweaving, the dance of uncertainty, love, laughter, and delight… These are the fabric of life. Now that I can step away from the moments of paralyzing fear and uncertainty… and feel the ground beneath me again, feel my breath steady and calm again… I can be in gratitude for this fuller, more human life experience.
Here's a last piece. In all of this, I am also left with a profound sense of owning my body. Of loving and tending this vessel that I inhabit. I had asthma as a child. My lungs have always been sensitive, quick to respond to the environment. In all of this, with lungs telling me, in essence, “The sky is falling! Take care of yourself!”… I am listening.
Just as I feel a renewed instinctive pull to make whatever changes I can to lovingly tend our land and our global environment… I also feel the same instinctive pull to tend myself even better. I spoke last time of getting caffeine out of my body. This has proven to be a deeply humbling experience (and I had planned to write about this before the wildfire took precedence). And yet, I feel more than ever that I need to be as healthy, strong, resilient, and powerful as possible… so that I can better navigate the road ahead.
The call to be a strong and wise woman, a brave and steady mother, and a guiding community leader has never been clearer. Here I go, feeling my way into being this woman even more.
I always end with an offering of questions to guide you into your own inner dialog, your own inquiry. Here are your questions:
Where and when have you felt this interweaving of uncertainty, love, laughter and delight? How have you found your steadiness and groundedness in the midst of it?
When you have found yourself in the face of deep fear or uncertainty… what is the wisdom that has come through it? Has there been any call to action within this (for your own benefit, or the benefit of others?)
How can you steady and tend yourself a bit more, so that you can step into a more powerful version of you?
In deep gratitude for everything in this sweet life,
Rebecca
* Disclaimer: This likely goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: Everything I write is for educational purposes only. Nothing I write or share can be deemed diagnostic or medical advice. Nothing I write or share can replace your own healthcare providers or your own internal knowing and wisdom. Period. Please seek tailored medical care and advice via your skilled healthcare team whenever you need it.
